Kavanaugh Fallout: The Good, The Bad, and the Foolish

Senator Susan Collins — basically a Democrat who occasionally votes with the Republicans, but for some reason maintains her GOP affiliation for electoral purposes — hasannounced her intention to vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court, which essentially ensures his confirmation. The issue of whether he committed a sexual misdemeanor at a drunken party as a minor — which, for a couple of weeks in America, was officially The Most Serious Crime a Man Can Commit — is now all but over, as the last grains of sand run out of that activist hourglass du jour.

Find one Democrat or Democrat-operative lawyer who will even accept a call from Christine Blasey Ford two days from now. That’s what really ought to offend decent people most about this whole charade: Not one of the pontificating senators or the screaming female Marxist “protesters” ever gave a damn about “women’s rights” in general, or Dr. Ford in particular, or cared for one second about her alleged trauma.

This was always and only about advancing progressive power and overturning the capitalist patriarchy, just like every other cause these thugs promote in any given week.

Why was this fight so important?

After all, Kavanaugh is a long-time Bush operative, apparently an establishmentarian through-and-through, and not particularly a constitutionalist or “originalist” in the Scalia mold. He was not even on the hallowed list of conservative judges provided to Donald Trump by the Heritage Foundation before the 2016 election, the list which provided Trump with Neil Gorsuch of “But Gorsuch!” fame. At face value, then, there was little reason for serious constitutional conservative Americans, or even Trump supporters concerned about the fate of their republic, to exhaust a lot of energy worrying about or defending the judge Mitch McConnell wanted.

However, given the overtly Marxist-Leninist tactic and tonality the Democrats were employing, and the implications of this tactic and rhetoric for the future of civil society, the stakes were very high indeed. For this fight was not, in the end, about Brett Kavanaugh. Nor was it about the Supreme Court, nor even about the U.S. Federal Government in general. The progressives were trying to undermine a routine political appointment — for purely ideological reasons — by destroying a man’s life and reputation through the mechanisms of a communist-style tribunal. And that is why Kavanaugh had to be confirmed.

The Democrats’ operating premise in this case was identical with the progressive principle underlying all such machinations, namely that every man, if one could lay bare his entire life, from childhood on, will eventually be found to have done something wrong, something that may be judged impure on current standards of piety. This impurity, once isolated, may be exploited and inflated into the very definition of the man and his life, such that he may be shamed out of public acceptability, and his support dwindled through the moral warfare of accusing defenders of being complicit in shameful impurities, or perhaps even having something shameful to hide themselves.

This is not about Brett Kavanaugh or the Supreme Court because the Tribunal is not a tool reserved for narrow, targeted purposes within party politics. It has been the weapon of choice for progressive leaders and their faithful dupes for generations, from Lenin to Mao to today’s “social justice warriors.” It is the weapon whereby the academic world has gradually been converted into a den of milquetoast Marxism, with university presidents, professors, graduate students, and freshmen who reject the progressive pieties of the moment — even if they reject them in favor of last year’s progressive pieties — being called before the Tribunal to beg for forgiveness for their sin of non-compliance. It is being used with increasing regularity and fury even in private, everyday contexts, such as the internet “shaming” of bad dates by regretful lovers, or people who leave small tips at restaurants by angry waitresses. Everyone is subject to being called up before the Tribunal at any moment, for almost anything, and is therefore forced to monitor his own behavior and attitudes for hints of impiety at all times, lest he run the risk of being “outed” by someone later.

In other words, the progressive Tribunal, which is never a one-time or isolated event, but rather is intended to foster an ongoing collective state of mind — everyone his own judge, jury, and executioner — exploits every man’s (and of course woman’s) private awareness of past folly, indiscretion, or humiliation as a weapon held permanently over his head, and as an implicit warning and threat:

“We know what you did, and we are going to tell everyone.

“It wasn’t as bad as it sounds? Well, we’ll present it with as much damning vitriol as possible, and it will be up to you to climb out of the morass of shame in which we intend to sink you.

“The accusation is one-sided or uncorroborated? But we don’t need corroboration — you do. All accusations are true until proven false, because all men are guilty. You know you have impure thoughts and have committed impure deeds somewhere, sometime. You have hit someone, hurt someone, cheated someone, lied to someone, mocked someone, belittled someone, or failed to help someone. At some point, you misrepresented yourself to save face, or hid an embarrassing truth about yourself to avoid rejection, or exaggerated your experience or abilities to gain favor. The people you hurt, or who know your untruths, are out there somewhere; their accusations lie in wait for you. We will find them and bring them out into the open, at your most exposed moment, and it will be up to you to squirm your way out of the embarrassment. Think of the shame in front of your family, your friends, the world — the people who didn’t know you then, and who will forever have doubts about you in light of these revelations of wrongdoing and impure intentions.”

That is the mentality and modus operandi of the Tribunal, which might also be labeled the Inquisition. It is the ultimate circular firing squad, as a society slowly cedes individual liberty and dignity to the progressive controllers, the keepers of the ever-changing Book of Progressive Piety, along with their useful idiots, the associate professors and graduate students and activists and protesters and social justice warriors, who are so eager to kill for Progress that they remain willfully oblivious to the fact that next year, or next decade, they too will be called before the Tribunal.

The only way to begin to stem the tide of the Tribunal is to resist its thuggery in mid-beating: simply refuse to cower before their public shaming tactics. Refuse to accept the premise that a man’s life is an ever-open book to be cherry-picked for evidence of impurity. Refuse to abide by the absurd Marxist pretense that a life containing potential regrets or mistakes is an invalid life, or that any allegation from one’s past, however flimsy and unsupported, is enough to open a Pandora’s box of culpability and recrimination, overturning the work and accomplishments of a lifetime.

That’s why Kavanaugh has to be confirmed. This victory for reason and humanity is a minor event in the big scheme of things, and will hardly stop the progressives from using their Marxist tactics again and again. But had this fight been lost, it would have swung the door wide open, inviting the Tribunal to flood in and drown all political discourse in America once and for all. The high-stakes focus on this nomination made the precedent-setting outcome extremely important.

As for the meaning of Kavanaugh’s confirmation from a narrow political point of view, however, I have been amused for days by the growing mantra of “unity on the right” that has developed among so-called conservatives and Trumpsters. “The GOP factions have come together like never before!” they declare, gleefully.

“Wasn’t Chuck Grassley wonderful?” they are saying all over the internet. “Lindsey Graham 2.0 is pretty fantastic,” gushesBen Shapiro. And, “Wow, even McConnell is sounding firm this time!” they all agree.

Three cheers for the Republican establishment defending one of their own. Republican Party unity at last! (Would they have done the same for an originalist judge who was not a long-time party operative and friend of the old boys club? Better not to ask.)

“Unity behind ‘Trump’s pick,'” they beam with joy.

United in “the swamp.” United behind Mitch McConnell’s preferred Supreme Court nominee. United in defending the Bush establishment. United for the “deep state.”